AquaFish

In Brief

AquaFish is a cute match Three game with an aquarium simulation included. The graphics are cartoon like and are ideal for a family with young children.

Aquafish is a match three game with an aquarium building sim, which you slowly build by earning gold from completing match three puzzles. When a level is completed you are awarded either 1, 2 or 3 stars. The higher the star, the more gold you earn i.e. 1 star = 100 gold, 2 star = 200 gold and 3 stars = 300 gold. You can see which star rating you'll achieve via the indicator below the target indicator. If you fail to complete the goals you have to start the level again. You get five lives. If you lose all five lives you have to start from level one again; however, there is a way to avoid this by leaving the game to run over the 30 minute timer (see the clock in the aquarium section). Every 30 minutes you are awarded a life up to the maximum of five lives.

Each level has a certain number of moves you can make before the level is completed, though this is sometimes replaced by a countdown timer. The number of moves varies with each level. I didn't get a time countdown until level 20. Each level also has specific goals to achieve which you can see in the bottom left of the game screen; for example, the target may be score a certain number of points or collect all of the blocks on the grid or collect other items such as gold chests and anchors or other block types. The gold chests and anchors are removed by moving them to the bottom of the grid, the former (blocks) are removed by creating matches that include the blocks. If you complete the goals before all your moves are used up, the remaining moves are used to add blocks that have power up abilities such as destroy all blocks on a line or a column. Whjen these are qadded, they do not require a complete match to activate. instead every block added activates and can clear virtually all of the blocks in one go. You can see the effects of this when I completed a level with 31 moves left. The resulting 31 additions that were a combination of line and column destructive blocks destroyed virtually every block on the grid (see the tenth image from the end of the review; you can see that only one column was unaffected, but with most of the lines also being destroyed, only two blocks remained.

The more gold you earn, the more you can spend on your aquarium. There are four categories that you can choose from the store to add to your aquarium; (which is accessible via the basket located in the bottom left of the main menu). These are different species of fish, different plants, different objects such as an old boot, a mermaid or a wishing well to name a few and finally there will be an extra aquarium background added sometime in the future. though this will not be available via this free standing version . You can sell items from your aquarium back to the store, but you only get half the gold that you originally paid. Most levels also contain other power ups such as bombs that destroy all blocks that surround it (9 blocks including the bomb block), and random color blocks, that can be included in any match, and if included will destroy all the blocks of the color you matched the block with. Although I didn't notice while playing, you can also recover lives as well. I lost two lives out of the four, but when I checked I still had four lives left. Apparently if you own the android version you can gain more lives by clicking on the + sign next to the heart (located in the top left of the aquarium) a window pops up that asks if you want to get a +1 life for watching AD's? This is disabled in the PC version that we have been given, however see below for more information abut this.

You can see a few game play videos of Aquafish HERE, HERE (Russian), HERE and HERE

Conclusion:

Although this is a port from an android game, it's transferred very well game play wise and is playable on PC; however, there is an issue which I've explained after the images below regarding a possible cheat. The graphics are ideal for the whole family and worth at least a 7.5 out of 10 for game play and the aquarium sim. There's nothing original, but the conglomeration of various ideas from different match three games makes this match three a worthwhile download. There is a countdown clock under the heart in the aquarium. This counts down from 30 minutes to zero. then resents to 30 minutes. I didn't notice what happened initially, then realised an extra life had been added to my life count after the clock had reset. The maximum number of lives you can have is five; when your lives have been recharged the clock disappears until you lose another life.

You can buy the Steam version for £1.99 HERE, the Steam version includes Steam achievements and A leader board. Also the upcoming new aquarium background will be available via the Steam version. you can see several Steam community reviews HERE

There is a cheat in this version (or an oversight, or just a glitch while porting the android version?). If you click on the + sign next to the amount of gold you have when in the aquarium, you'll see a window appear (see the sixth image above). Clicking on these will give you more gold for free (see the last few images above). If fact you can click on the gold icons (i.e. 1500, 3000, 5000 & 10000 ) as many times as you wish. This then allows you to create an aquarium full of everything in the store (see the last image). There is a limit to the number of each category that you can add to the aquarium; for example, I reached the maximum number of fish that you can add, but for the rest, gave up when it became almost impossible to move items due to the fish getting in the way. :) Using this cheat/oversight effectively spoils the aquarium building part of the game, but you can stop yourselves from using this cheat/oversight and earn the gold by completing levels in the usual way. I presume this is micro-transactions (for real cash) left over from the android port, but I may be wrong.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Aquafish doesn't interest you, but you still want something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but Delenn still posts frequent updates and most of the links still take you to the latest deals). You can check out Delenns thread HERE for details of other free games and offers. Also check elsewhere in the game discussion forums HERE, (usually on the first page). Also, check out the 43 free games available via Indie Gala’s Dev’s showcase HERE. The latest additions (since I last updated this list) include Horror Girl, Citadale: The Legends Trilogy (Retro 8 bit style action adventure platformer), Crab Dub (shmup), Malevolence (retro styled first person horror adventure), Dino Run: Marathon of Doom (retro-styled, action-packed prehistoric dinosaur racing game), Space Ship: The Game (classic 2D space shooter), The Maze: Game (classic 2D maze game), Patience, my Patients (8 bit retro platformer), Total Singu (top down shooter). To get any of the above Indie Gala games you require a free indie Gala account and then click on the acquire button. Once that has been accomplished the game will be added to your account and you should be able to download a free standing copy of the game any time for as long as indie Gala operate. Some of the games do contain adult content and are not suitable for young children.

The latest weekly giveaway over at Epic Games includes two games this week; entitled Moonlighter (an Action RPG with rogue-lite elements) and This War of Mine (an atmospheric post-apocalyptic rogue-like side scrolling platformer); these two games would normally cost you £30. From August 2nd these change over to two more games, i.e. Alan Wake (an atmospheric third person psychological horror/shooter) and For Honor - standard edition (an atmospheric third person hack and slash RPG with gore, swordplay and story rich). These two games give you a combined saving of over £35). Both This War of Mine and For Honor do have extra dlc available that expand the games, but are not necessary to enjoy the games. Finally, there are also over 130 free games available via Steam HERE